


Of a mermaid and a magician

by Quecksilver_Eyes



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies), The Last Unicorn (1982), The Last Unicorn - All Media Types, The Last Unicorn - Peter S. Beagle, pirates of the caribbean on stranger tides
Genre: Discussions of Immortality, Fate, Immortality, Magic, Mermaids, Mortality, and young, schmendrick is sick of it all, syrena is nosy, unicorn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-02
Updated: 2016-11-02
Packaged: 2018-08-28 15:51:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8452393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quecksilver_Eyes/pseuds/Quecksilver_Eyes
Summary: “You’re a magician.” She tilts her head, not quite bird like. There’s something else in her gaze, flickering and shimmering dangerously. “What is your deed?”“My deed is what it is and what it isn’t. It was and never shall be again.” He thinks of a castle, falling apart, of a hero and a virgin and a unicorn that shall never be the same again. She reminds him of the virgin. They have the same eyes, wide and unblinking. ‘Why can I not see myself in your eyes?’, a deranged king asked, decades ago and the virgin averted her gaze.





	

“I have been mortal, and some part of me is mortal yet. I am full of tears and hunger and the fear of death, although I cannot weep, and I want nothing, and I cannot die. I am not like the others now, for no unicorn was ever born who could regret, but I do. I regret.”  
― Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn

 

“Are you not afraid?” The language is heavy on her tongue, as if it doesn’t belong there and she looks at him, eyes wide, scales scattered over her skin. He shakes his head and keeps peeling the potatoes, smooth, methodic movements, stemming from decades of experience. “No”, he says. “I’ve been told, once, never to run from anything immortal for it only attracts their attention.” 

She grips the cliff that protrudes from the water right by his knees. Her nails are long and bony and sharp enough to break skin, should she desire to do so. “How would you recognise an immortal?”, she asks, voice melodic, tail parting the waves. He chuckles.

“Do you regret?” She blinks. “Can you weep or want?” He looks up from the bucket. “Or die?” 

“You’re a magician.” She tilts her head, not quite bird like. There’s something else in her gaze, flickering and shimmering dangerously. “What is your deed?”

“My deed is what it is and what it isn’t. It was and never shall be again.” He thinks of a castle, falling apart, of a hero and a virgin and a unicorn that shall never be the same again. She reminds him of the virgin. They have the same eyes, wide and unblinking. ‘Why can I not see myself in your eyes?’, a deranged king asked, decades ago and the virgin averted her gaze. 

The girl in front of him, who is not a girl, who is not a fish, who is something else entirely, claws digging into the motionless body of a Christian, fangs grazing her plump lips, gaze fixated on the magician, she laughs. It’s a pleasant sound, clear and melodic and enticing. He takes another potato, remembering the woman he buried not twenty feet away.

“You must have known a unicorn in your time, magician. I can smell its benevolence in your shaggy robes.” Her scales glint in the sun as she flicks her tail. 

“Men have not known unicorns for a long time”, he says. “Pray tell, why should I be the lucky exception?”

“They have, some decades ago, when heroes were real and magicians were more than mere tales. Men have known unicorns, even when the red bull ran close behind them and wiped their traces.”

The magician keeps silent, thinks of an outlaw who screamed at a unicorn, thinks of the bravest women he has ever known.

“Tell me magician, what does immortality feel like for those who were not born for it?” 

“So you do know me.”

“I know you. Even if I were blind, I would know who you are, magician.”

He sighs. “I suppose it feels like mortality feels for those who were not meant to have it. It’s maddening.” He casts a look at the Christian in her clutches, lips raw, throat ripped apart. “It feels like taking one’s last breath over and over again.” She smiles. “So nothing can be what it isn’t.”

“And everything is what it is”, he says ruefully. “You had a good hunt, I take it?”

“I was not hunting.”

“And yet he is dead.”

“I did not wish for his death.” She furrows her brows, her tail splashes water on the shore. “He was not meant to be here.”

The magician put his knife down. “What is the story?”

“It tells of a cleric, captured by pirates. They needed a mermaid, needed to make her weep. So they caught one. And with her, they caught death. The story tells the tale of a mermaid who wanted to cheat death but couldn’t for it is a part of her. He was hurt. He would have died. So she asked him for permission to heal him, for she knew she could do it. He declined, wanting forgiveness instead.”

“A mermaid’s forgiveness is teeth and blood and salt water and darkness, it is nothing like human forgiveness. Magicians are told to never ask for it.” He takes off his hat. It’s old and worn and falling apart at the seams. 

“Men are not.”

“They may or may not know.”

“They do not. They would not know death if it stared them in the eye.”

He keeps silent, thinks of the king who collected immortals he should have never touched, thinks of an old makeshift witch, keeping a harpy she should have never seen. ‘Your death sits in that cage’, the unicorn said, when the magician was still young and unknowing and had yet to be a magician.

“I killed the only man who was not meant to die. I should have let him live.”

“You are what you are”, the magician said and rose. “Touching you means touching death, loving you means breathing water. He may have never been told, but he knew. There is not one man who loves a mermaid who wouldn’t know her fangs.”

“I will eat him”, she says and a part of the cliff crumbles into the sea. “It is my fate.” 

“Fate must not always come true. It was never a unicorn’s fate to be mortal. And yet she was.”

“And she will never be the same.”

“No. She is what she is now. She had a name and she can regret.” He remembers the hero, who used to call her name, desperate and loving and soft.

The mermaid flinches, water splashing at the magician’s feet. “I do not want to eat him”, she says. “Any other man I would, but not him.” She looks at the grave he dug out, tears streaming down his face, no magic to help him, for he is just the vessel it chooses. “Magician, tell me, what is this?”

“It is a human custom to honour those who have passed away.” Dirt covering her face, brown hair streaked with grey, fingers bony and thin, and all that she was, gone in a heartbeat. 

“I wish I could do that for him. He is dead, I cannot change that, but I wish I could let him rest in peace instead of collecting his bones.”

‘I do not care’, the hero said and the virgin screamed for she knew what the hero did not. Immortality erases love and snatches regret from your fingertips. A mermaid grows legs when she is dragged on dry land, grows mortal and soft. 

“Leave him here”, he says and reaches for the Christian. “Leave him here, I will care for him.”

She lets go of the Christian, lets go of the cliff. “I am in your debt, magician”, she says before diving back into the sea, flicking her tail just high enough to splash sea water on the magician’s freezing feet.

The magician takes a shovel and begins to dig, right next to the grave he dug for Molly Grue, who screamed at a unicorn when everyone else would have seen nothing but a white mare 


End file.
